Preston Ferraiuolo and Jerry Zhu
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Higher education is in trouble. Princeton is in trouble. After Tuesday’s announcement that the federal government suspended some of Princeton’s research grants, it’s clear that we’re already in the crosshairs. At Columbia, after the university appointed an administrative official to oversee an academic department in acquiescence to Trump administration demands, it appears that the integrity of academic freedom is also under attack.
Many university presidents have chosen to remain silent in the face of this attack on academia. Others, such as Michael Roth ’84 GS of Wesleyan University, have explicitly vilified the Trump administration. Rather than taking an overtly political stance against the administration, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 has chosen to take a principled stand against the most troubling facet of the recent grant suspensions: their impact on academic freedom.
City Journal
Excerpt:
Princeton University, like all Ivy League schools, has sunk more deeply into administrative activism over recent years. The school maintains a robust Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy, with more than six DEI employees per 1,000 students. The school also displays several other activist commitments that distract it from its educational mission—most notably, Princeton’s decision to intervene in the Students for Fair Admissions case at the Supreme Court in favor of affirmative action.
Elizabeth Hu
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 addressed conflicts between free speech and censorship on college campuses during a discussion at the Princeton Public Library on Monday. He was joined in conversation by Deborah Pearlstein, Director of Princeton’s Program in Law and Public Policy.
He also addressed the difference between censorship and controversy through a reference to Judge Kyle Duncan, who was invited to speak at Stanford Law School in 2023. Duncan’s talk was interrupted by student protesters throughout and was eventually cut short. “That’s real censorship,” Eisgruber said. “It made it impossible for a speaker that some people on campus wanted to hear to be heard, and that should be recognized.”
Rodrigo Menezes
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Recently, Princeton University announced a policy that would require members of eating clubs and co-ops living in University housing to buy a second meal plan, costing about $900 a year. I, along with all the other members of the Graduate Interclub Council (GICC), believe that this policy would be disastrous for Princeton’s undergraduate experience.